Spite Flight
- 17 years ago
Ub Iwerks' first WILLIE WHOPPER cartoon was the commonly seen AIR RACE (1933), intended for MGM but rejected at the time. To please MGM, Iwerks reworked AIR RACE into the rather different SPITE FLIGHT, as presented here: today, a less commonly seen cartoon.
In AIR RACE, Willie's air race was a tall tale told to his friends and took up the entirety of the cartoon. SPITE FLIGHT replaces the tall tale framing device with a new, more intricate surrounding story, establishing that Willie is racing to save the mortgage on Mary's house -- and that Willie's racing rival is also Mary's landlord, hoping to beat Willie so he can evict Mary as planned. (We never learn why throwing her out should matter so much to him. Oh, well.)
Only a fraction of the original AIR RACE footage survives in SPITE FLIGHT, and a lot of what is here has been somewhat reworked.
Hey! The lack of the tall tale framing device means that in Willie's world, this story is "really" happening -- making it the only actual adventure Willie ever had! He just lied about having had others.
In AIR RACE, Willie's air race was a tall tale told to his friends and took up the entirety of the cartoon. SPITE FLIGHT replaces the tall tale framing device with a new, more intricate surrounding story, establishing that Willie is racing to save the mortgage on Mary's house -- and that Willie's racing rival is also Mary's landlord, hoping to beat Willie so he can evict Mary as planned. (We never learn why throwing her out should matter so much to him. Oh, well.)
Only a fraction of the original AIR RACE footage survives in SPITE FLIGHT, and a lot of what is here has been somewhat reworked.
Hey! The lack of the tall tale framing device means that in Willie's world, this story is "really" happening -- making it the only actual adventure Willie ever had! He just lied about having had others.